20 Truths:  Byakuya and Kenpachi
by Vivienne Grainger - Bleach
Summary: In my universe, they actually are friends.  Come view the ramifications ...


The Muse liked the first "Twenty Truths" so much she wanted to make another. I pushed the keys down for her, saved the file, stuff like that.

Tite Kubo's, not mine, not for profit.

1.

When they met, Byakuya Kuchiki and Kenpachi Zaraki experienced a strong mutual antipathy. "Oaf" and "priss" were the words they used to describe each other. They didn't realize that they shared one definition which made all of their animosity irrelevant: "soldier."

2.

To become friends, they first got wounded and then got drunk together. Alcohol is vastly underrated as a solvent for mutual differences, as is known to fighting forces everywhere. For instance, if Hueco Mundo is ever invaded on a date reserved for the Espadas' night in, Aizen's got trouble.

3.

As a result of the unlikely friendship between the two taichou, years down the line, Ikkaku Madarame will become fukutaichou not to Kenpachi Zaraki, but to Byakuya Kuchiki. Who will sometimes recall civilizing that notorious ex-Eleventh Division Rukongai gutter rat Renji Abarai with fondness when he considers the sandpaper-and-steel-shavings personality of his present fukutaichou, and will not infrequently wish that banging one's cranium against one's desk were an actual headache remedy.

He will sometimes consider the experiment of banging _Ikkaku's_ cranium against one's desk, but considers the possible judicial repercussions of this, and refrains.

4.

Neither Byakuya nor Kenpachi has anything at all the other wants, with one exception: comfortable company. That is why one of the wealthiest, highest-ranking men in Soul Society is able to enjoy the presence of one of its freest spirits.

5.

Byakuya can always beat Kenpachi at _go_.

6.

Kenpachi can always beat Byakuya at chess.

7.

When they spend the evening together in one or the other's quarters, they play a set of best two out of three of each game. The results never vary: one wins the first two games, the other wins the next two games.

8.

Byakuya and Kenpachi have never sparred together.

9.

Ikkaku and Renji spar instead, and report the results to them. Renji usually loses, although increasingly an actual bruise count would be necessary to determine the winner. [Volunteers wishing to conduct this inventory may leave their names with the author.]

10.

Byakuya does not wish to spar with Kenpachi because he believes that they would both lose their tempers, it would end in fatality, Kenpachi is one of the few friends he has managed to make in his life, and he doesn't want to remember killing a friend.

11.

Kenpachi does not wish to spar with Byakuya because he believes that they would both lose their tempers, it would end in fatality, Byakuya is one of the few friends he has managed to make in his life, and he doesn't want to remember killing a friend.

12.

Zaraki also knows that he would be the one to have to deal with that memory, because his sword told him that he would win. He figures she knows; after all, she's smarter than he is.

13.

Senbonzakura, who knows the outcome as well, has not given her wielder the corresponding information. She knows the depths to which Byakuya's pride might sink him far too well to trust him with it.

14.

Kenpachi introduced Byakuya to his passion for military magazines by giving him subscriptions to all of them one year for his birthday. He also introduced him to playing soldiers/battleships - er, er, _re-enacting the strategies discussed in the magazines_ - with Yachiru's dolls.

15.

For Kenpachi's birthday ten and a half months later, Byakuya gave Kenpachi packages of plastic soldiers, sets of small plastic battleships, and two small green rugs to be used as terrain or islands as need be. Byakuya being Byakuya, they are expensive toy soldiers and battleships, and the rugs are hand-made. Their quality, however, has nothing to do with why Kenpachi rates this as his best birthday present _ever_!

16.

The plastic toys (and the rugs) always accompany Kenpachi on his visits to Byakuya's quarters, and at Kenpachi's, Yachiru's dolls have been retired from active duty.

17.

Instead of sharing a cigar with Kenpachi after dinner one evening as he had planned to, Byakuya pulled out the pot.

18.

Twelfth Division spent most of the next morning getting four pigs, one goat, and a very large horse with a flatulence problem respectively off the roof, out of what was left of the garden, and through the only doorway out of Mayuri Kurotsuchi's personal quarters (eventually, the doorway had to be deconstructed). Later that day they realized that a second goat had made its way out of and then back into the garden, when it went after Akon's lunch, ate Akon's lunch bag, and then made a spirited attempt to sample Akon's best shirt. It had Akon's dog-end for dessert.

The whole thing made Akon very angry. In short, it got his goat.

19.

Soi Fon also had to deal with a pig on a roof. She blames Byakuya. He swears he didn't do it.

20.

He didn't. Kenpachi figured, what are friends for?


End file.
